68 Miles, 68 Years

Last Saturday I drove up to Ridgeland for the annual LAMBRA meeting. I had been planning on cobbling together something I could ride in the cyclocross race that morning, but those plans had gone out the window days before. I had somehow tweaked my neck in such a way that looking to the left caused a lot of pain in the neck muscles on the right. Clearly the worst possible thing I could have done was a cyclocross race. In fact, I was having plenty enough trouble riding in the city without being able to easily look to the left or over my shoulder for traffic. As it turned out, that new Garmin Varia had arrived at just the right time because having it alert me to traffic, or more importantly a lack of traffic, behind me was a big help. Anyway, it's Thursday today and it still hurts, so I must have really done some damage.

City Park - 6 am Friendly Friday Ride

The LAMBRA meeting was small but productive, I think. Everyone is trying to get racing back on track and not being too picky about the details. There are clearly a ton of riders, many of whom have little actual race experience. In fact, the very definition of "race" has been getting a little fuzzy lately with all the Fondo style rides that are essentially races, and the gravel races, and cyclocross races that include gravel, etc., etc. So anyway we'll be pushing a bit to get some more races on the calendar and will probably actually promote some through LAMBRA itself rather than relying on clubs. It seems that everybody and his brother has started up a new "club," most of which exist in a kind of quasi-official state, which is to say on Facebook or Instagram or whatever, and aren't official USAC clubs. I guess we'll see how that all pans out. To complicate matters a bit, there will be substantially less revenue coming to LAMBRA from USAC since they changed from providing license-based rebates to a strictly "rider-days" basis. With the relatively small number of events and participants we get at our USAC events, that 20 cents per rider per day isn't going to pay for a whole lot. The days of providing lots of championship jerseys and awards and stuff are probably over for now anyway. We'll be able to do a fair amount to help event promoters, but resources will become limited over the next year or two.

So last week the Strava annual odometer ticked over 12,000 miles, and with a bit over a month left to go in 2021 it's entirely possible I could end the year at around 13k which I think will be the highest I've ever recorded. I have no idea why, however. It could just be as simple as fewer rainy mornings or the lack of collegiate road trips where I don't get to ride. Last weekend it was just two Giro Rides, but on the whole it was a pretty solid week of riding. Today is Thanksgiving, and also my birthday. We did a holiday Giro, which for me works out to around 59 miles, so before I went home I added a few miles through Audubon Park and on the levee to make an age-appropriate 68 mile day just for fun. As if I didn't already feel old enough, I had a checkup on Monday which went well. I mentioned my history from way back with some arrhythmia and the occasional spikes I see on my HRM early in my rides and suggested perhaps it would be a good idea to get a Holter monitor for a few days to see if there's anything to see, so I'll be going in tomorrow to see what the cardiologist says about that. With my history and all it's entirely likely I have at least the classic athletic heart, and I'm certainly old enough to have AFIB or something like that, so I guess it's a good time to check that out. Otherwise though things are pretty much the same. HDL is a little high, LDL is low, blood pressure is textbook 121/80 or something, PSA is super low, so nothing to complain about.

Last week I learned of the passing of Bob Perrin from brain cancer. It came as quite a surprise. I have known Bob as long as I've been riding bikes. He personally signed my first racing license in 1973. I vividly remember standing over his shoulder as he typed the information on an old typewriter at someone's house where we were having a club meeting. Back in the day I would find him riding in Audubon Park - before it was closed to cars, and we would complain about the cars and wish the road could be just for bikes. Now of course it is closed to cars and there's a bike lane but there's also a never-enforced 10 mph speed limit for bikes, so it's not a good place for training rides any more. In more recent years I would run into him riding on the levee and would often ride with him for a bit. He had finally gotten knee surgery the last time I saw him and was back riding. Then with the whole COVID thing I wasn't surprised not to see him. Bob was a great and well-respected photographer. A few years back he dropped off a bunch of race photos from the 70s, most of which I scanned and put up on the NOBC website. Someone said this morning that there might be a memorial ride for him on Sunday so we'll see how that works out. I've been thinking about trying to do a century ride on the river levee now that they have re-paved the spillway road and also paved the levee top upriver from the spillway almost all the way to the Gramercy bridge. That should make for about 90 miles out and back from the park, so it would be a easy matter to tack on an additional ten. If there's a memorial ride on Sunday I could do that and then continue up the river. Anyway, I was sad to hear about Bob. I was always expecting to see him riding on the levee on Monday or Friday when I often do easy recovery rides. 

Somewhere I have this photo of him sliding on the ground after crashing on the u-turn at one of the annual Bastille Day races, but I haven't been able to find it. Isn't it typical that I can't find a photo of the person who spent his entire life taking photos? Bob didn't do a whole lot of racing every year, but he was always around. I'll miss him.